


Fear the Wise Man

by Project0506



Series: Rex adopts a Jedi [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, a lot more hurt than comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23558722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: "There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man"Cody, Obi-Wan, and a conversation filled with unhappy truths.Coda to 'Behold, a Gentle Man'
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: Rex adopts a Jedi [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684942
Comments: 57
Kudos: 864





	Fear the Wise Man

**Author's Note:**

> Um. Ow. That is all.
> 
> Part 2 of 4. Was supposed to be the 4th part, but Cody didn't want to wait. Good luck.

He lingers just inside the doorway, waiting.

Some part of Cody that isn’t angry appreciates it. This is Cody’s space, such as it is.

There’s nothing in this room that is supply stock. The desk is wood, real wood salvaged from some battlefield or another, it’s patterning organically flawed in the way nothing artificial has ever truly replicated. The whole thing is solid, though the left quarter bears scorches. The bed raises: hydraulics ripped from the docking gear of a ship-to-shore hopper due for decommissioning pull it flush to the wall; on the underside lives a massive holoscreen, discarded for malfunctioning haptic interface but otherwise functional. The shelves that twist out of the wall are survivors of a supply room demolished when Ventress and Grievous had marched on Tipoca.

Piece by piece, he’d ripped out the silver durasteel and fiberplast furnishing that came from the GAR warehouse that stores hundreds of thousands of identical pieces. He’d replaced the smooth uniformity with pock marks and burns, puckered stitches and oil stains. They were broken and discarded but they were _his_ , and on days when he felt helpless and hopeless he’d find himself some grit or paint or polish.

For a year, he buffed stains until the patina they left shined, outlined flaws so they became features, smoothed down the edges of the pieces until they _fit._ Until he’d transformed his room full of salvage from the broken individual into a functional whole, a savage kind of beauty that he thinks fits _Kote_ , even if not Marshall Commander Cody.

Cody owns everything in this room except himself. He’d always thought Obi-Wan respected that.

“You made the wrong call.”

In the doorway Obi-Wan sighs, and the small part of Cody that still _hoped_ goes still. “May I come in?”

Cody angles his head to one of the two chairs that frame a small center table. On it sits a bottle of something expensive, mild and alcoholic, faintly sweet, and a set of glasses. Obi-Wan had given him both. The bottle is almost empty. They only ever drink it together.

Cody remains standing.

“You made the wrong call,” Cody repeats. It’s not an opinion, it’s a truth carved in his bones. “Will you justify it to me?”

There’s a clink of glass on glass and where Cody expects the gentle scent of dumbapple and spices there’s a sharp, disinfectant smell of cheap rotgut. Obi-Wan, it seems, came prepared for this to be ugly. The general was never afraid to meet a battle where it would be found. It’s one of the most Mando’karla1 of his traits. Cody can respect that.

He turns from the shelf and pads over to the remaining chair. The alcohol Obi-Wan brought burns his eyes before it even hits his throat. They both throw back their drinks. Obi-Wan refills their glasses.

“I argued against it.” Cody knows that, he trusts that. “I knew it was callous. I know that there’s some sort of… pervasive disregard. For Anakin’s feelings. As if he isn’t allowed them. I’ve never found out where that comes from.” He smiles bitterly at the swirl of pale brown liquid colored sickly through the green glass. “They. Well. They didn’t _threaten_ his future mastery.”

Obi-Wan drinks, a slow pull as if he could either tolerate the taste or had already moved past sensing it. Cody lets him sit, lets him find his words. “They didn’t threaten because that would be unseemly,” he finally continues. “But they did heavily insinuate that a _master_ should be capable of putting aside discomfort for the good of the mission.”

“‘Discomfort’,” Cody says, low, dangerous. Obi-Wan toasts the word and drains his glass again.

“In the end,” he murmurs. “It was determined that this information would likely be vital to our ability to counter Separatist tactics.”

‘ _And in the end, I agreed,’_ Obi-Wan doesn’t say, but Cody hears anyway.

Obi-Wan swallows. “I made the only call I could. And I had to trust. Trust in Anakin, even when it feels like I’m the only one who does.” The bottom of his glass clinks against the polished tabletop once, twice, again. “Kar’tayli buirkan2,” he quotes.

_He holds duty in his heart._

Obi-Wan refills his glass, and tops up Cody’s. They drink.

Cody rolls Obi-Wan’s words around his mouth, picking them apart and rearranging them, trying to find where that sharp edge is that pricks at him. There’s something there, buried among the quiet wording that sticks and sticks and sticks until it slices a bleeding line in his gut.

“I can’t accept that,” Cody murmurs. Obi-Wan laughs, hoarse.

“Can’t you?” He says. It’s right on the edge of mocking. Who he’s mocking Cody doesn’t quite know, and doesn’t much care. “And you think I can?”

“What I mean is,” Cody says. His voice goes quiet in anger, smooth as a sharpened blade. “I _don’t_ accept that. I do not accept what you call ‘duty’.”

“And _what_ do I call it then, Marshall Commander?”

It’s not the Marshall Commander that answers. The Vod’alor3 has never pulled blows the Marshall Commander would.

“Convenience,” he breathes the word into being.

Obi-Wan whitens with rage.

Again there is silence between them. Obi-Wan struggles to be a Jedi. Cody struggles to regret.

“I will need an explanation,” Obi-Wan says, when he’s released enough of what he feels to the Force. He pushes his half-full glass away. Cody follows. They shouldn’t have been drinking for this.

“I can offer you an apology,” he says. Their eyes meet, catch, hold. This has happened only once before. _I can hurt you_ , Cody had said, _and tell you the truth,_ _or I can apologize and this conversation never happened._

They’d been too new to each other, then. Their partnership too fragile. Obi-Wan had taken the apology.

“I’d prefer that explanation, if you would.”

“Vos,” says Cody who would be alor4 of his clan, with a damning evenness, “has eyes. He dances in and through Hutt Space like blockades are things that happen to other people. If he wants to know what a slave acts like he knows where to find them. And I would hope that the Jedi order’s highly trained, deep cover intelligence operative knows how to _observe_. Targeting a particular former slave, one who should be his little brother in your order, wasn’t necessary. Whoever told you it was, whatever voice in your heart allowed it, _lied_.”

Obi-Wan is the hunted sort of stillness.

Cody is Mando’ad5, a complete identity he built for himself from scraps thrown by those who thought he and those like him were cheap imitations. Mando’ade6 do not leave wounded.

The Vod’alor slides his blade through the heart.

“Your masters ordered you to allow your brother to inflict harm on your child, in order to make his mission preparation easier. And you complied.”

Obi-Wan _keens_. It’s choked, hushed chunks of sorrow ripped from a throat unused to expressing it. He buckles, his hands find his hair and _grip_.

Tears blur the world in Cody’s eyes to grays and primary colors. He looks away, clenches his teeth against the pressure roiling in his throat. This is just another way he and Obi-Wan are so alike: they’re so very good at hurting the people they love. Cody drains his glass. He refills it. He swallows down an apology. Obi-Wan had already said he didn’t want it.

Obi-Wan grieves and Cody drinks.

The sounds disappear quickly, hushed with practice. Obi-Wan’s breathing stays unsteady for a long, long time. Cody’s eyes roam his room, picking out the soft pieces where Obi-Wan had filled gaps in the life he’d built for himself. There’s a tea set holding one corner of a shelf. An actual wood-fiber flimsyplast book next to the bed, on loan. A small circle of knit fabric folded in the corner of the desk: a splash of color or a warm wrap around his shoulders when space feels particularly cold. What kind of man would Cody have become without Obi-Wan?

“ _Cody_.” Cody is on his feet instantly, sliding to his knees in front of Obi-Wan’s chair and catching both his reaching hands in his own. Cody never, ever touches Obi-Wan first, and never without permission. “What do we do?”

Cody presses a kiss to one knuckle. “I love you,” he says. Obi-Wan makes a sound of distress.

“ _Dear heart,_ ” he protests, soft. Cody laughs, rough, shaky.

“I love you,” he repeats. “And I know you are fond of me. I have accepted what you can give me Obi-Wan. If you can give me more I would welcome it gladly. If you can’t, I accept that as well. I love you. But I need you to understand. I _can’t_ give him back.”

They breathe together and slowly they fall back into their rhythm, their synchronicity that makes them unstoppable.

“You would take him, Vod’alor,” Obi-Wan asks. He’s struggling to keep accusation out of his voice. He doesn’t succeed, but he tries, and Cody loves him. “You would keep him.”

“I don’t have to take him,” Cody corrects, soft but firm. “I already have him. I have Rex, so I have Anakin.”

This is another painful truth, but one Cody doesn’t have to say. If, tonight, Anakin Skywalker is given a choice between Torrent and the Temple, the transport to Coruscant would arrive empty. Obi-Wan closes his eyes and nods, acknowledging the point.

“But you would keep him.” _Where’s his choice_ , Obi-Wan’s voice says. _Would you make yourself a hypocrite?_

Cody shakes his head, a sad smile lingering at the corner of his mouth. He presses a kiss to each of Obi-Wan’s hands in turn.

“When we go,” he says, because it hasn’t been an _if_ in a very long time, “I will ask you to walk with us. Once we go, I will ask him if he’d like to walk back.”

It’s a subtle difference, but crucial. Cody would gladly add a room to his house for Obi-Wan. Cody will build his house with a room for Anakin already included in the design.

Obi-Wan slips forward, and Cody rises up to meet him. Their foreheads press.

It’s not agreement, Cody knows. It’s not acceptance. Obi-Wan acknowledges that this is Cody’s plan, that this is what Cody’s decided is best, but that doesn’t mean he agrees. Someday when he’s not reeling, when he’s found his feet again, planted them, his stance steady in his belief, they will come back to this. They will debate, they will argue, maybe if they’re lucky they’ll do it without cutting into each other.

Cody knows where his own feet are planted. If Obi-Wan wishes to move him, he will have to fight.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Having the 'right stuff', showing guts and spirit, the state of being the epitome of Mando virtue. Back  
> 2\. (Author-derived) He holds duty in his heart. From Kar'taylir - To know or hold in one's heart, and Buirkan - Responsibility, Duty. Back  
> 3\. (Author-derived) Clan Head of the Vode. From Vode - Brothers, and Alor - Chief, Head. Back  
> 4\. Chief, Head, in context, the leader of a clan Back  
> 5\. Mandalorian. Lit. Child of Mando. Back  
> 6\. Mandalorians. Lit. Children of Mando. Back  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What Wise Men Fear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26490481) by [wanderingjedihistorian (RangerJedi67)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RangerJedi67/pseuds/wanderingjedihistorian)
  * [Urmankar'la Haat'mitir](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26504470) by [wanderingjedihistorian (RangerJedi67)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RangerJedi67/pseuds/wanderingjedihistorian)




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